My fingers tremble only slightly as I write back the response. I’m not afraid, I tell myself. I just know my lane. And it’s with guys my age, perhaps a trainee in a different department, and not with the head of the company.

Freddie: I’d love to! How about tomorrow?

13

Tristan

The coffee is bitter and too hot, burning my throat. It does nothing to counteract the pit of jealousy in my stomach. It’s a feeling I have no right to, not to mention no reason to feel, and I hate things that have no purpose.

But I hate things I can’t control even more.

Yesterday’s snow hadn’t settled, but a light dusting of it remains on the trees in Central Park. Joshua and I spent an hour in the park earlier with an obligatory stop at Larry’s. In our household, it’s never too cold for ice cream. And the entire time I’d been debating the wisdom of calling Frederica.

Had she gone to the Gilded Room last night?

My hand tightens around the coffee cup. And what could I do about it if she had? I’d pulled a favor to get her a personal invite, and it hadn’t been so she could get close and personal with some smarmy Wall Street banker. No, I’d planned on being there.

Joshua was supposed to spend the night at his godmother’s. But one of her kids had gotten mono, so the playdate was cancelled. And with Linda scheduled, I’d already given both my housekeeper and the nanny the weekend off. Which meant there was no one left standing but me.

“Dad?”

I swallow the bitterness. I’d had an evening with my kid instead, ordering pizza and playing cards, and it had been great. “Yes?”

Joshua bounces past the grand piano and comes to stand beside me by the windows. The piano had been my sister’s. Joshua doesn’t like his weekly piano lessons, but I haven’t let him quit yet. Jenny hated hers when she was his age too.

“Guess what?” he asks.

“What?”

“Marianne is making lasagna tonight.”

I grin, ruffling his hair. “Did you ask her nicely?”

“I didn’t have to ask.” He does a little dance in his whale-print sweatpants, a gift from his grandmother. “She offered. I think she knows I have a test in school tomorrow.”

“Your schedule is on the refrigerator, so she knows. And you’re going to do great, kid.”

“I know,” he says, a little too quickly. “We’ve been practicing a lot.”

“We sure have. Do you want to run through it again?”

“No.”

“All right. We’ll do it one final time after dinner, then.” I follow him into his bedroom, glancing at the giant world map above his bed. That had been a birthday present from me. Together, we’d scratched out the places we’ve visited and circled the places that are still on the bucket list.

Between me and my sister, Jenny had been the worldly one. The one who jumped at the chance of an exchange year in Sydney, who went against our parents’ wishes to backpack in Southeast Asia for five months. I’d had my head in numbers and school, and then, in business. No time for travel or frivolity.

That’s changed. Joshua will have seen the world by the time he’s eighteen, if I have a say in it, including the places his mother had loved.

“Have you spoken to Danielle since the Thanksgiving fair?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he says, sitting down cross-legged by his latest Lego set. He’s graduated to more complex builds and the pieces for each now number in the thousands.

“And?”

“She thought it was cool that we had the amusement fair to ourselves. She asked if it was your amusement fair,” he says, laughing. “I told her no.”

“I’m glad the two of you enjoyed yourselves.”